South Dakota Abortion Ban in Dead Heat

In 2006, South Dakotans
voted 56 to 44 percent against a law passed by the state legislature which would
have outlawed all abortion in the state.
But polling done by a South
Dakota newspaper after the ban was defeated found
that an abortion ban with exceptions would likely pass in the state. “They said we’d gone too far, that we
had to have exceptions for rape and incest,” said Leslee Unruh, of Yes for
Life, the group pushing the ban. So, when
anti-choice activists regrouped for another round, they wrote a different law. Now, in 2008, we have Initiated Measure 11,
which would outlaw most abortions, with narrow exceptions for reported rape,
incest, and “serious risk of a substantial and irreversible impairment of
the functioning of a major bodily organ or system of the pregnant woman.”

South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, the group opposing the ban, says
these are merely “so-called” exceptions.
Why? On the health exception, “‘substantial
and irreversible harm’ is hardly a black-and-white issue,” Dr. Suzanne Poppema has written
for RH Reality Check. “Imagine a woman, recently diagnosed with cancer, who
cannot begin chemotherapy while she is pregnant. Would she be forced to continue
her pregnancy to term regardless of the risks? Who decides? If medical experts
cannot agree on the precise risk to a woman’s health, they may opt not to act
at all rather than risk criminal penalties,” Dr. Poppema writes. Indeed, a leaked memo from
a South Dakota
hospital, Stanford Health, told physicians – who, at this facility, only
provide medically necessary abortions – that the ban would nonetheless have
significant impacts on their medical practice. Dr. Marvin Buehner, a Rapid City
doctor specializing in high-risk pregancies, told
the Washington Post, “If there’s a risk of a Class 4 felony if I don’t
meet the ambiguous standard of ‘serious risk of substantial and irreversible
impairment of a major bodily organ or system,’ there’s no way I would consider
doing an abortion for health reasons.”

The rape and incest exceptions are narrower than they might at first sound,
too. Before a doctor could perform an
abortion after a rape or incest, the
woman must consent to DNA sampling from herself and her fetus for forensic
analysis. The doctor must secure DNA
samples and arrange for their transfer to law enforcement.

Tiffany Campbell, a spokeswoman for South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, also says her own son’s life would have been lost under the ban. In utero, Campbell’s twins suffered from “twin-to-twin transmission” syndrome, in which twins unequally share blood circulation. Had one twin not been terminated, both would have likely died. Termination to save a sibling’s life wouldn’t be permissable under the ban.

But for some anti-choice organizations, the ban doesn’t go far enough. The American Life League has joined South
Dakota Right to Life in opposing the measure, on the grounds that it permits
some abortions. Dr. Allen Unruh, also of
Vote Yes for Life, told NPR, “Ideally, I’d like to save every child possible,
but we don’t live in that type of world right now. So to me, it’s kind of like
if the Titanic is sinking, would you say, well, let’s not lower the lifeboats
because we can’t save them all? Let’s save every person we can.”

But the inadequate exceptions aren’t the only reasons South Dakotans oppose the ban, says ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project State Advocacy Director Sondra Goldschein. Rather, Goldschein says, “There is not a lot of focus on whether there are exceptions or whether there aren’t. This is a place where they do not want the government.”

If the ban passes, the law will be fought in court and will present a
challenge to Roe at the Supreme Court.

While Measure 11 purports to look out for both the safety of the women it will effect, the true purpose behind the ban is to take away a woman’s right to choose and take a large step toward a complete prohibition on abortions in South Dakota.

The vague language of the measure is far too flexible to reassure those of us concerned about protecting the health of women at risk.

We cannot roll the dice with the health of South Dakotan women on the ambiguous language of Measure 11. To protect women’s health, we must stand strong and vote No.